Part 4 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”Do you know what they'd be doing in the neighborhood of Bush and Stockton, where Archer was shot?”
”Isn't that near where Floyd lived?”
”No. It would be nearly a dozen blocks out of his way if he was going from your hotel to his. Well, what did you do after they had gone?”
”I went to bed. And this morning when I went out for breakfast I saw the headlines in the papers and read about-you know. Then I went up to Union Square, where I had seen automobiles for hire, and got one and went to the hotel for my luggage. After I found my room had been searched yesterday I knew I would have to move, and I had found this place yesterday afternoon. So I came up here and then telephoned your office.”
”Your room at the St. Mark was searched?” he asked.
”Yes, while I was at your office.” She bit her lip. ”I didn't mean to tell you that.”
”That means I'm not supposed to question you about it?”
She nodded shyly.
He frowned.
She moved his hat a little in her hands.
He laughed impatiently and said: ”Stop waving the hat in my face. Haven't I offered to do what I can?”
She smiled contritely, returned the hat to the table, and sat beside him on the settee again.
He said: ”I've got nothing against trusting you blindly except that I won't be able to do you much good if I haven't some idea of what it's all about. For instance, I've got to have some sort of a line on your Floyd Thursby.”
”I met him in the Orient.” She spoke slowly, looking down at a pointed finger tracing eights on the settee between them. ”We came here from Hongkong last week. He was-he had promised to help me. He took advantage of my helplessness and dependence on him to betray me.”
”Betray you how?”
She shook her head and said nothing.
Spade, frowning with impatience, asked: ”Why did you want him shadowed?”
”I wanted to learn how far he had gone. He wouldn't even let me know where he was staying. I wanted to find out what he was doing, whom he was meeting, things like that.”
”Did he kill Archer?”
She looked up at him, surprised. ”Yes, certainly,” she said.
”He had a Luger in a shoulder-holster. Archer wasn't shot with a Luger.”
”He had a revolver in his overcoat-pocket,” she said.
”You saw it?”
”Oh, I've seen it often. I know he always carries one there. I didn't see it last night, but I know he never wears an overcoat without it.”
”Why all the guns?”
”He lived by them. There was a story in Hongkong that he had come out there, to the Orient, as a bodyguard to a gambler who had had to leave the States, and that the gambler had since disappeared. They said Floyd knew about his disappearing. I don't know. I do know that he always went heavily armed and that he never went to sleep without covering the floor around his bed with crumpled newspaper so n.o.body could come silently into his room.”
”You picked a nice sort of playmate.”
”Only that sort could have helped me,” she said simply, ”if he had been loyal.”
”Yes, if.” Spade pinched his lower lip between finger and thumb and looked gloomily at her. The vertical creases over his nose deepened, drawing his brows together. ”How bad a hole are you actually in?”
”As bad,” she said, ”as could be.”
”Physical danger?”
”I'm not heroic. I don't think there's anything worse than death.”
”Then it's that?”
”It's that as surely as we're sitting here”-she s.h.i.+vered-”unless you help me.”
He took his fingers away from his mouth and ran them through his hair. ”I'm not Christ,” he said irritably. ”I can't work miracles out of thin air.” He looked at his watch. ”The day's going and you're giving me nothing to work with. Who killed Thursby?”
She put a crumpled handkerchief to her mouth and said, ”I don't know,” through it.
”Your enemies or his?”
”I don't know. His, I hope, but I'm afraid-I don't know.”
”How was he supposed to be helping you? Why did you bring him here from Hongkong?”
She looked at him with frightened eyes and shook her head in silence. Her face was haggard and pitifully stubborn.
Spade stood up, thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and scowled down at her. ”This is hopeless,” he said savagely. ”I can't do anything for you. I don't know what you want done. I don't even know if you know what you want.”
She hung her head and wept.
He made a growling animal noise in his throat and went to the table for his hat.
”You won't,” she begged in a small choked voice, not looking up, ”go to the police?”
”Go to them!” he exclaimed, his voice loud with rage. ”They've been running me ragged since four o'clock this morning. I've made myself G.o.d knows how much trouble standing them off. For what? For some crazy notion that I could help you. I can't. I won't try.” He put his hat on his head and pulled it down tight. ”Go to them? All I've got to do is stand still and they'll be swarming all over me. Well, I'll tell them what I know and you'll have to take your chances.”
She rose from the settee and held herself straight in front of him though her knees were trembling, and she held her white panic-stricken face up high though she couldn't hold the twitching muscles of mouth and chin still. She said: ”You've been patient. You've tried to help me. It is hopeless, and useless, I suppose.” She stretched out her right hand. ”I thank you for what you have done. I-I'll have to take my chances.”
Spade made the growling animal noise in his throat again and sat down on the settee. ”How much money have you got?” he asked.
The question startled her. Then she pinched her lower lip between her teeth and answered reluctantly: ”I've about five hundred dollars left.”
”Give it to me.”
She hesitated, looking timidly at him. He made angry gestures with mouth, eyebrows, hands, and shoulders. She went into her bedroom, returning almost immediately with a sheaf of paper money in one hand.